Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 explained

Last week Qualcomm announced the successor to Snapdragon 835 SOC i.e the Snapdragon 845. This SOC is the flagship from Qualcomm for 2018 which will power many upcoming flagships be it from Samsung, Xiaomi, LG, HTC, OnePlus etc and might even power some laptops. The 835 didn't have any update as in the case of Snapdragon 820 where the 821 was an upscaled version of the 820.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

At the event, Qualcomm also showcased some laptops by HP and ASUS running full version of Windows 10 on Snapdragon 835 SOC and claimed better battery life than Intel's offering. Although the core performance will be better with Intel's Processors yet the main aim was to showcase Qualcomm's capability and their contribution in making a full desktop OS run on SOC's. Now, with the introduction of 845, we should be able to see more such laptops and Chromebooks powered by them although initially ASUS, LENOVO and HP will be making 835 based Laptops commercially available.

Coming to the technical aspects of the 845, it is still based on Samsung's FinFET 10nm process similar to the 835. We had rumors of 7nm process to be taken over for the next flagship SOC however it will most likely debut by the end of 2018 or early 2019 although they are mere speculations and we cannot confirm it yet. Well, anyways lets talk about the present flagship from Qualcomm i.e the 845.
(The Snapdragon 820/821 were based on 14nm : smaller the number, better the efficiency)

Specifications: 

• It comes with X20 LTE modem for Gigabit speeds upto 1.2 Gbps download and 150 Mbps upload. The 835 came with X16 modem where the peak download speed was 1Gbps and the peak upload speed was 150 Mbps. 

• In terms of CPU it comes with 8 Kryo 385 cores : 4 Cortex A75 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz and 4 Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The 835 came with 8 KRYO 280 cores with 4 cores clocked at 2.45 GHz and the remaining 4 clocked at 1.9 GHz.

• The memory (RAM) will be based on Low Power DDR4X where the maximum capacity would be 8GB with speeds of  1866 MHz.

• The GPU used is Adreno 630. Qualcomm claims 30% better graphics performance and efficiency than the previous gen Adreno 540 GPU. The GPU comes with Open GL ES 3.2, Vulkan and DirectX 12. It also supports 4K video playback at 60FPS and the screen can have 10 bit high dynamic range which was also present on many 2017 flagships. 

• The Digital Signal Processor used is Hexagon 685. This Processor is used to deal with all the AI and machine learning related strategy. The regular CPU i.e the KRYO cores will only handle the performance aspect whereas the DSP handles the AI and machine learning needed in photography, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, etc. 

These DSP's compute complex algorithm related to the task its meant for and with the CPU and GPU combined, they provide an all round computing power. The L2 cache and shared 2MB L3 cache should allow for more better and faster communication between various components on the SOC with mutual sharing of information between the CPU, GPU, DSP, etc.

The predecessor i.e 835 came with Hexagon 682 DSP.

• On the camera front, the 845 comes with Spectra 280 Image Signal Processor. 

This ISP can handle 14 bit signal processing and comes with newer and better architecture. Theoretically the configurations possible are : single lens 32MP and dual lens with 16MP resolution each. The camera will also be capable of recording in 4K at 60 FPS which the iPhone X launched a few months ago could already do.
This indicates that many manufacturers will take advantage of it and hence incorporate it in their upcoming devices.
Some additional features include Multi-Frame Noise reduction with image stabilization, Hybrid Auto-focus with dual PDAF and support for 10 bit HDR.

• In terms of security Qualcomm has always maintained the priority and have enhanced it with their Secure Processing Unit. 

This unit is meant for storing security related data consisting of fingerprints, iris scanned data or any other bio-metrics which the manufacturers will be making use of. This ensures complete isolation of the important data which cannot be breached thereby enabling secure log in into any bio-metric or pass-code related applications including payment gateways.

The other specifications include: 

• WiFi 802.11 ad (Multi Gigabit WiFi) and ac (2.4 and 5GHz band support) with 2×2 MU - MIMO 
• Bluetooth 5
• GPS, Beidou, GALILEO, GLONASS, QZSS, SBAS
• Qualcomm Quick Charge 4 and 4+ (based on manufacturer's choice)

The technical specifications seem quite promising especially considering AI and machine learning. Many manufacturers be it Apple with its Bionic A11 chipset and even Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 970 SOC have taken the initial steps in the AI and AR direction. Now that Qualcomm has made it mainstream though they had already initiated its development with their previous SOC's since years, manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC, OnePlus , Xiaomi, etc should be making full use of it.
Xiaomi has already claimed to be making use of the 845 for their upcoming flagship i.e the Mi 7. Following the trend of 2017, the Galaxy S9 should be the first device with Snapdragon 845 to be available commercially although we will know more about it in the days to come. 

Image and info Source : Qualcomm